HAMPDEN, Maine — Last year’s Town Council elections were clouded by negative campaign robocalls made by and paid for by then-Mayor Carol Duprey.
This year, a series of emails targeting three Town Council candidates purportedly sent by a local property rights group is generating heartburn in the community.
At least five emails about the six candidates seeking Town Council seats on Nov. 3 were sent earlier this month from the Hampden Association of Landowners email account, HALO04444@aol.com.
It’s not clear how widely the emails were spread because those who received them said the blind carbon copy used in sending them prevented them from seeing the email addresses of other recipients. It’s also not clear who sent them because they are not signed.
The problem for some in the community is that the organization, the Hampden Association of Landowners, or HALO, officially disbanded last year, two of its founders said Wednesday. The nonprofit was formed in response to local landowners’ concerns about the overhaul of the town’s comprehensive plan, a matter that largely was resolved by late 2011. When it folded, what was left in its checking account, just over $1,700, was given to the Goodwill Snowmobile Club, former treasurer Michael Levesque said.
Levesque and Rich Armstrong, who also was a HALO board member, said they were not happy HALO’s email account was being used to disseminate election-related messages that do not support and that the messages were not signed, as was the case with emails the group sent out while it was still active.
“HALO is no longer an entity, so I don’t want my name attached to anything where I’m not in control of what it’s going to say,” Armstrong said Wednesday.
Michael Levesque, the group’s former president, agreed.
“We said those emails shouldn’t go out anymore,” he said, calling the move a “misrepresentation of a group that is no longer an entity.”
The five emails forwarded to the Bangor Daily News this week include two that specifically targeted Councilor Greg Sirois, who is seeking another term on the Town Council in the Nov. 3 election.
“Sirois is absent for over 33 official council meetings this year alone!” one states. “Yet, he managed to attend the Finance Committee on September 21st to adamantly announce his plan to increase your property taxes if re-elected.”
The Hampden Town Council typically holds regular meetings twice a month as well as special and budget meetings.
Town Clerk Denise Hodsdon said Wednesday her records show Sirois missed a total of 14 meetings. Five were required regular and special council meetings, which fall under the rule that members can miss up to six before forfeiting their positions. That is the problem former Mayor Duprey recently ran into when she hit the six missed meetings mark, forfeiting her seat.
Hodsdon said the rest were meetings of council committees on which Sirois sits, namely the Finance and Administration Committee and Infrastructure Committee.
Hodsdon confirmed that no one from HALO had visited the town office to look into Sirois’ attendance record. Sirois, however, did, she said.
Council members in Hampden are required to attend regular and special meetings as well as the meetings of committees to which they belong, Hodsdon said.
Asked Wednesday about the meetings he missed, Sirois said some were because he was helping his sisters care for his mother, who recently died of cancer, and the others because of a planned family vacation.
“They go after me, which is fine. It’s part of the political process. The problem I have is, No. 1, the falsehoods of the comments, and No. 2, the fact the individuals sending these out don’t have the guts to send them out on their own email and try to hide behind HALO.”
Other emails from the HALO account promote candidates Mark Cormier and Brent Marquis while taking aim at Sirois, Councilor Bill Shakespeare, who also is seeking re-election, and former member Ivan McPike, who lost his re-election bid last November but is giving it another shot next week. McPike and former Councilor Jean Lawlis were the subjects of the former mayor’s negative campaign robocalls.
The emails claim that Sirois, Shakespeare and McPike “plan to raise the mil rate yet again, as they clearly state at the Finance Committee meeting on September 21, 2015 and again at the Candidate Forum.”
Sirois pointed out that the council’s decisions on spending are made by majority vote.
Armstrong said he does not support the messages in several of the HALO emails.
“I think that their intentions are probably good,” Armstrong said. “They are super conservative people who don’t want their taxes raised, but I think that when you make it all personal attacks, it becomes unprofessional. I only consider it a personal attack when they have their facts wrong. ‘Greg Sirois missed 33 meetings.’ If that’s a lie, then I think that is a personal attack.”